new fire
that they've lighted on the southern bank."

A high flame flared among the bushes, but the brass twelve pounder was
promptly turned upon it, and after the second shot it disappeared.

"It ain't healthy, lightin' fires to-night," said Long Jim grimly.

The boats swung forward now at a slightly increased pace. On the
_Independence_, Adam Colfax, Adolphe Drouillard, Thrale, Lyon and the
others half stood, half knelt, looking steadily ahead, their minds
attuned as only the minds of men can be concentrated at such a crisis.
In this hour of darkness and danger the souls of the New Hampshire
Puritan and of the Louisiana Frenchman were the same. One prayed to his
Protestant God and the other to his Catholic God with like fervor and
devotion, each praying that He would lead them through this danger, not
for themselves, but for their suffering country.

The five in their own boat were not less devoted. They, too, felt that a
Mighty Presence which was above wind, rain, and fire, alone could save
them. Their hands were not on the trigger now. Instead they bent over
the oars. Every one of them knew that bullets could do little the rest
of the way, and it was for Providence to say whether they should reach
the end of the watery pass.

The river narrowed still further. They were now at the point where the
high banks came closest together and the danger would be greatest. But
there was no flinching. The fire from either shore increased. Thunder
and lightning, wind and rain raged about them, but they merely bent a
little lower over the oars and sent their boats straight toward the
flaming gate.

CHAPTER XX

THE TRUMPET'S PEAL

Major George Augustus Braithwaite, scholar of William and Mary College,
man of refinement and experience, commissioned officer who had been in
the assault at Ticonderoga, and who had stood victoriously with Wolfe on
the Plains of Abraham, leaned upon a bastion at Fort Prescott and
watched one of the wildest nights that he had ever seen. He wore his
three-cornered military hat, but the rain flowed steadily in a little
stream from every corner. He was wrapped in an old military coat, badge
of distinguished service, but the rain, too, ran steadily from every
fringe of its hem and gathered in puddles about the military boots that
enclosed his feet.

He thought nothing of rain, or hat, or cloak, or boots. The puddles grew
without his notice. The numerous flashes of lightning disclosed his